


Jadebent

by sour



Category: Homestuck
Genre: AU, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-09-30
Updated: 2012-11-21
Packaged: 2017-11-15 08:02:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/525004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sour/pseuds/sour
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You are the Sunslammer now, resplendent in your nightless desert palace on steel beams above the brooding and hatching caverns—below you, attendants rumble the dead mother grub from her nest, and your virgin lusus will crawl into her place. There is light in the throne room, but it shines only on the throne, and (filtered through thick yellow-tinted glass to protect the sublunaries) it makes a sun-shaped halo of the dust around you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> credit for the concept of the au goes to sopsketch on tumblr.

**> Be Aradia.**

 

You wake to muffled splashing.

It's almost impossible to pull yourself from the warm comfort of your recuperacoon, but a dull twinge of anxiety builds with every second of consciousness. So you break the surface, breathing in stinking lake air and wiping slime from your skin. You grab a grey sheet, shivering, and leave green footsteps on your way to the shore.

"I hate being covered in slime outdoors," you yell across the still and silent waters of the lake. There is silence until a horde of fairy bulls chatters from the forest.

Your name is Aradia Megido, and you wish you weren't so pale for this sopor-stoned seadweller scum. You've tied the sheet clumsily under your arm, thanking the absent Sun that it isn’t drone season, and snapped a light beacon to the noose of your lasso.

"It's three hours past pink zenith," you say to no one, you’re pretty sure, because you don’t know how well sound travels into the water, if it can go into the water at all. You don’t know a damn thing about water, and you don’t know how deep he’s gone into this particular body. Slime is already drying and crusts over your horns in the reeking air—the cheap stuff, fortunately, you’ve learned your lesson—so you close your eyes, hit the switch on the beacon, and throw the end of your lasso onto the lake.

——

The bulls have already migrated to the shore by the time he comes up. He gasps, audible even from the shore, and tugs at the lifeline. You reel him in.

"Thanks, A." His voice is hoarse and clogged.

"Shut up." By the dying light of the beacon you see him blink at that, even through the glassy-eyed haze of slime—he always takes it so personally, and then pretends it doesn't affect him at all. He’s pathetic. You can hardly imagine anyone more pathetic.

"You didn't have to get outta your coop for me."

“You’re drowning on land.” You notice a damp weed caught on his horns, and hold him still with a tight grip on his shoulder while you reach for it.

"Don’t be passin’ out judgments of which you got no idea," he says, but it’s true—there’s that tell-tale sputter and spit of water in his squawk blaster as he talks, and you know he knows it’s obvious. He turns and bends toward the water on shaking legs.

"I hate you." You wish you meant it. "Pond scum."

When you return with a towel he's still bent over the shore, knees in the mud where the water strokes the dead dirt. Warm air has already dropped beads of condensation on cool grey-purple skin and they mix with sweat, rolling steadily past aural fins to drop into the lake. You approach, glaring, but he doesn't turn his head to glance for your approval, not even in that miserable way of his—he just gurgles and spews water from his landlungs while his gills flutter and close.

——

"What were you in there for?" You ask him, hoping for a lucid answer now that he's stopped coughing and the high is wearing off. Your lusus puts her head in his lap.

"I heard her," he says, resting his head on the worn wooden table between you. "Glubbin’ in there. Laughin' at us. I heard the Mother died."

"Really," you murmur. "How old does that make you feel?"

"You don't ever listen t' me, A," he says, and you heave a sigh. "I got real knowledge, it ain’t just dreams, it’s like—magic. Some magical bullshit like that. She'll be queen tomorrow, the new jade.”

“I don’t believe you,” you say, only half aware of his voice when his fingers begin to scratch distractedly against a fresh pair of trousers. “Stop that. Your clothes.”

“Tell you what,” he says, ignoring you until you physically pull his hand away from the fabric. “I’ll tell you her horns. One plain and a stinger. Look for it and come a perigee you tell me I’m a lyin’ sack a bilge."

"Royalty gets the easy horns." _Shouldn’t have said that_ , you think, as his face lights up and his gaze grows distant.

"The mutant—she's alive, A, don't you fuckin' look at me like that—"

"I don't want to hear about her," you say. "Not right now. You better stop thinking about this crap, or I swear—I'm getting back into my slime and I'm not getting out until the pink moon rises again, and if you go for another swim in that time, I swear I'll pour ink on your white shirt and you couldn't go see the new Sunslammer if you wanted."

It’s an empty threat, because only once every five perigees can you afford new clothes, and you know he'd only dye it all black to make a statement, and he'd be thrown out on his ass, and you'd have to deal with him cursing royalty for the next sweep. But he worries you now—you know coldbloods get unstable, you knew it when you accepted moirallegience—but as hours pass in your shared recuperacoon, the only one you can afford, he speaks in his sleep, and slime seeps into his mouth. And when he wakes, he talks through the fog about a dead tyrian in the bottomless lake.

 

————

**> Be Kanaya.**

You are the Sunslammer now, resplendent in your nightless desert palace on steel beams above the brooding and hatching caverns—below you, attendants rumble the dead mother grub from her nest, and your virgin lusus will crawl into her place. There is light in the throne room, but it shines only on the throne, and (filtered through thick yellow-tinted glass to protect the sublunaries) it makes a sun-shaped halo of the dust around you.

There is always light. Alternia rotates too slowly for your desert to see anything but day, and it has been day for hundreds of sweeps—as if the world’s axis is rusted, or as if it has simply forgotten to turn. Only a tyrian can live long enough to see day change to night, but no tyrian has lived for very long at all. The ancestors of the sublunaries built a vast system of underground passages, which reach from the Palace to the edges of eternal dusk and eternal dawn, and on the dark side of the planet, the sea scum and their rustblood companions live forgotten—scrabbling in dirt and murky water, they wear holes in the knees of their trousers, or rip their shirts in coldblood rage.

That is what you've been taught, in any case. You've been underground, but you've never stepped out of the light.

You think you are expected to say something about the corpse. A blessing, probably, before her head is removed to balance a doomsday scale and Her Sublime Carapace is dragged underground to putrefy and nourish the desert. You really want to find the empress, to beg for advice before the world is yours, but there is no trace of her in the Palace of the Sun, and now the empress is you.

You have always loved the light, but you think this might be somewhat overdone. You look around at the olives and teals in their finery and jewels, and the mustardblood— _gold_ , you’ll call it, when you have command of the empire’s vocabulary—the mustardblood servant sticks his tongue at you through two sets of jumbled teeth, and you wish you were far underground.

Sollux, you’re sure his name is. Sol-lux, goldblood, sunlight—you can’t remember the name he had before the Court bestowed this one. His lusus groans outside the door, begging in its sepulchral two-toned way for a vat of mind honey. The court took it from atop a communal hive stem to guard the entrance to the Palace, and its charge—barely out of pupation at the time—came along. A visor in red and blue protects his eyes, or protects everyone else _from_ his eyes, for all you know; you’ve never seen them, but you like the colors all the same.

 

\-- tethysTranscendant [TT] began pestering grubAttendant [GA] \--

 

TT: Kanaya, I believe.  Hello. I'll be brief.  
TT: You are making things difficult for us, and I'm tired of it.  
TT: Future you, I mean.  And I should specify that I accuse all twelve.  
TT: I suppose I shouldn't be contacting you quite yet, considering your undeveloped timeline, but I've no other way of preventing our current disaster.  
GA: What  
GA: Dont Message Me Here Its Not Proper When Im On The Throne  
TT: Get off the throne, then, if you must.  
TT: But enough chatter.  My demand is this: take Feferi.  
GA: I Dont Even Know Who That Is And Frankly I Suspect I Dont Want To  
TT: She is the Knight of Space, and of value to your cause.  
GA: I Dont Have A Cause And I Dont Want One Of Those Either  
GA: Much Less To Be Ordered Around By Nameless Complainers In Sassy Purple Text Passing Out Titles Like Inexpensive Smoke Stubs  
TT: Let me put that more delicately.  You have the benefit of my help.  
TT: And the Knight must have the benefit of yours. Imagine how you could improve her life.  
TT: Her luck, even.  
GA: I Dont See Why This Knight Is Of Such Import To You  
TT: You might say I'm interested in her advancement as Space player in particular, and in her survival as a blood pariah.  
TT: Your caste system is fascinating and, to be frank, unspeakably barbaric.  
GA: Ok Ignoring That Bit About Space Which Makes No Sense As I Hope You Realize  
GA: And The Part About My Species Which Is Rude And At Minimum Uninformed  
GA: Whatever You Are  
GA: I Hope Youre Not Implying What I Unfortunately Suspect Youre Implying Because Also To Be Frank Thats Completely Impossible  
GA: Handling One Mythical Mutant Caste At A Time Is A Preferable Situation Considering The Responsibilities That Have Recently Dumped Themselves Onto My Slop Platter  
GA: And Besides All Of This Everyone Knows Shes Dead  
TT: Do they?  
TT: _Do_ they, though?  
GA: Yes  
GA: They Do

\-- grubAttendant [GA] blocked tethysTranscendant [TT] \--


	2. Two

\-- tiltshiftGradient [TG] began pestering compactGuillotine [CG] \--

TG: still living with mom huh  
TG: before you flip out let me tell you its nothing to be ashamed of  
TG: for a multilegged skull monster im sure shes pretty fine  
CG: HA HA, NICE ONE, PRETENDING YOU CAN SEE INTO THE SEALED BROODING CAVERNS IS A REALLY GOOD AND HUMOROUS JOKE.  LET’S PUT THAT ONE IN THE BOOK SO THAT GENERATION UPON GENERATION CAN WITNESS TRUE GENIUS.  
CG: AND, WHILE WE’RE AT IT, WE CAN RECORD PROOF OF YOUR "EDGY" AND "COOL" HEMOTYPING.  YOU ARE THE CHANGE ALTERNIA NEEDS.  
TG: ok i have no idea what you just said  
TG: but its no joke bro ive TOLD you this  
TG: your lifes like a fucked up puppet show and im the kid right in front  
TG: but there are no shitty popcorn gifs in this world to describe my complete and utter knowledge of your every goddamn secret  
TG: well  
TG: until the void  
TG: the turquoise line does something and then theres nothing  
TG: voids no big though im pretty much the void pro by now  
TG: techgod of void and seer of all that there aint to be seen  
TG: lets see that little shouty grey sock bow down because im pretty damn sure i am an actual god to you  
CG: A WORSE PANTHEON HAS NEVER GRACED THE COLLECTIVE ALTERNIAN LOBE STEM, THE END.  
TG: fuck  
TG: preach it  
CG: I’M KIDDING, I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT.  
CG: BYE, ASSHOLE.

\-- compactGuilltoine [CG] blocked tiltshiftGradient [TG] \--

 

**> Be Kanaya.**

"I can't abdicate, Karkat."

"Horseshit."

"I don't want to."

"That's not what you said before the old mother kicked it."

"That was before I understood the responsibility," you say, exasperated. "Why don't you just stay down here? Doesn't it make you think of childhood?"

"Yes. That's the fucking problem. Look, I get it, okay, and I'm not asking you to abscond if you don't want to, but I can't be here when the slurry comes, and I _can't_ be here at hatching." He leans back against your lusus. One of her legs folds over his shoulder, and she clicks her mandibles comfortingly.

You join him, stroking your mother's tarsus and the hooks of her claws, and put your hand on Karkat's cheek, willing the red flush away. It doesn't come as easily as it could when you were young, this shaky moirallegience, but you can’t talk to Vriska, for all her alluring malice, and Terezi is too level-headed for your pale feelings. Not that you haven’t tried.

There's a sniffle and a cough, and you open your mouth to tell Karkat that honestly, living with your mutual lusus isn't the worst thing that can happen, and he should think about being honest with the public about his blood, he has the protection of the court and it's not as if they'll cut off his head--but Karkat's eyes are wide, and as he snatches a scythe from his strife deck, you realize you're not alone.

There is a flash of a bare grey foot behind the white carapace of your lusus, and you hold out a hand for Karkat to stay still.

"Come out," you call, using your most authoritative voice, which, even as it echoes in the caverns, only barely reaches irritable.

"Can't," says the voice.

"We won’t hurt you." You finger the twainsaw catch on your double-sided lipstick.

"I’m underdressed, your majesty."

"How did you get in here?" Karkat snarls, leveling the blade of his scythe.

A pause. "There was space," the voice says, as if that could explain it.

————

**> Be Terezi.**

This seems to be the time.  You're never sure, even though you keep a watch around your throat that _click click click_ s for every second of every minute and clacks for pink zenith and hits a tiny note for green zenith, but you're not the dude of time—that's Karkat; he hates your watch, and makes a point of the fact when he has any opportunity.  He doesn't have to watch, you always tell him.  He says you're not funny.

Word came one perigee ago from a shaky brownblood who was nearly thrown out of the Palace for wearing socks with sandals.  You remember his uncertain stutters, and the smell of his fear, and the force with which he gripped your wrist as he told you of the sea scum and his ram-horned moirail—the heroes of blood and life.

You cover yourself with white robes and tighten your blindfold—not that what's left of your eyes is particularly gruesome (you're told), but the wind at the dawn border is fiendish, and this particular strip of silk (white, nice and cool, folds comfortably without slipping) was a gift from Kanaya.

You know the long way to your lusus better than the way to the throne room, and as you lead her to the surface, blazing heat warms her scales.  No one can see you—you've made sure of that.  Karkat knows you're gone, but there is nothing he can do to stop you.  Kanaya, as far as you're concerned, doesn't have to know.  And Vriska—Vriska, who certainly won't miss a drop of tuerenide from her strife deck, and who couldn't reach inside your mind now if she tried—to be honest, you don't care what Vriska thinks.  You tug your hood down and sniff the scorched air.

You may be blind, but you think your dragon knows which way to go.

——

You find them easily; they've made a fire bigger than both of them combined, and the scent of roasted shark meat is discernible from the air.  Your lusus, heaving with exertion, lands heavily, and the wind from her wings sends sparks jumping into the sand.

They see her.  They don't see you.  The seadweller pulls a revolver from his strife deck and shields his moirail, as if his spindly seahorse body can protect her.

"Easy," you cackle as their eyes stare wildly into the gloom.   _Click click click click click_.  Ramhorns grabs a flaming branch from the bonfire and stands beside him.  Must not have a very effective specibus.  She’s pretty, though.  You flick your tongue in the air.  Yes, red as ancient rust.  Their eyes are used to darkness, but they can’t see past yours—just the terrific bulk of the great white dragon and the smoldering burn of her gaze.

"A talking dragon?" The seadweller whispers, then laughs, daring himself to believe it.  His moirail grips her torch tighter.

"Don’t be stupid."  You drop the void.  The seadweller aims—pulls his trigger—and nothing happens.

"Fuck."

"God _damn_ it, Eridan, that’s nobility, look—"

"Like I give half a stinkin’ crap what’s got hold a that thing—"

"Nocturnes!" You crow, sifting your spear in the sand before you.  "Listen up!"

"Look," says ramhorns, gesturing at you with her torch.  "She’s got the robes.  The white—wait.  I know you."

"Oh?"  You give your bloodthirstiest smile.  The black lipstick really does it for you, you’ve heard.

"You’re Pyrope, aren’t you? The adjudicatrix?"

"Ha! You know me."

"We get news here," the seadweller says sourly.  You flare your nostrils in his direction, and are hit with the stench of curdled spite.  "We ain’t savages."

"Of course not. You simply keep your firearms soaked in deference to nobility."  You point to his moirail with the tip of your spear, and she tosses her torch back into the fire with a sort of resentful chagrin.

"We’ll do whatever you want," she says.  She reeks of exhaustion and boiling frustration, and you smile.  "Just don’t throw us in jail.  We don’t have clothes good enough for it."

"What does she know," spits the seadweller—Eridan, she’d said. "Blind as a cavefish. Couldn't tell a robe from a tablecloth. I was just cockin' it," he tells you, waving his gun, and you can hear the water sloshing around in the chamber. "Wanted you on your guard."

"Oh, I'm very much on my guard." You approach, keeping your speartip pointed at ramhorns. She doesn't back up, but her eyes grow wide. "I'm here on a mission for the Empress, nocturnes, and you are to come with me."

Eridan laughs derisively. Ramhorns reaches up to push your speartip to the side, but you flick it downward, burying it into the sand before she can touch it.

"Watch out, cherries," you laugh, and she folds her arms. "Poison."

——

\-- tiltshiftGradient [TG] began pestering graceCorrupted [GC] \--

TG: hey listen up space bug this is your god speaking  
TG: i know you love our banter or whatever and its not that everything i give you isnt gold but im gonna get right to it  
TG: dont use that shit yet  
TG: its dangerous  
GC: WH4T 1S YOUR PURPOS3 1N M3NT1ON1NG TH1S  
TG: im warning you friendly like ok  
GC: 1N TH4T 1T "FUCKS YOU UP" OR SOM3 OTH3R UNC1V1L1Z3D PHR4S3 SP3W3D W1TH NO THOUGHT FOR PROPR13TY 1N TH3 F4C3 OF TH3 L1GHT P4TR1C14T3 >8O  
TG: i wouldnt put it like that  
TG: maybe some lesser hero of void could get their mind p much fucked up and over but whats an infinite negative expanse of nothing to someone whos got the shit locked down  
TG: im not about to dis some grey chick that licks her screen and somehow tastes everything im saying because thats pretty boss  
TG: but you never know  
TG: maam  
GC: 1ND33D W3 L3SS3R VO1D H3RO3S 4R3 OV3R 4ND UPFUCK3D  
GC: 1TS 4 SH4M3 R34LLY BUT WH4T C4N YOU S4Y TO TH3 BL1ND PROPH3TS  
GC: 1 N3V3R D1D W4NT 4NY P4RT OF TH1S SUNNY S1D3 BUS1N3SS BUT TH3Y CHOS3 M3 TO OP3N MY 3Y3S TO TH3 SUN  
GC: TH1S 1S WH4T 1 G3T FOR 1T  
TG: ok never mind you clearly have everything under control  
GC: OH BUT DONT YOU S33 MY PO1NT >8]  
GC: DONT COND3SC3ND, YOUR GR4D13NC3  
GC: WH3N YOU W3R3 BUT 4 W1GGL3R 1N YOUR SH3LL 1 S4W 1NTO TH3 BR1GHT 4BYSS 4ND 1T G4Z3D B4CK 1NTO M3  
TG: yeah im not the dude of time or anything but im pretty sure were operating on different timelines here so thats technically any point in my life  
TG: also by the way im the one who can see your progress but i get where you might be confused there  
GC: 4ND 1T SPOK3  
GC: DO YOU KNOW WH4T 1T S41D  
TG: obviously  
GC: 1 4M M4D3 OF VO1D >8[  
GC: 4ND NO L1N3S OF R3D 4L13N T3XT COULD POSS1BLY UNM4K3 TH4T F4CT  
GC: NO M4TT3R HOW S4CR1L1C1OUSLY CR1MSON TH3Y G3T  
GC: OR PR3T3NT1OUS TO TH3 ST4TUS OF SOM3 4NC13NT P4NTH3ON TH4T 1 DONT R34LLY KNOW 4BOUT >:?  
TG: hell yeah  
TG: anyway all im saying is dont get sucked in before you know what youre doing  
TG: we have a maid too and goddamn is it tough to get her to stop messing with planets  
TG: thats rose for you though  
GC: M3SS4G3 R3C31V3D, H3R3T1C  
GC: 1F YOULL 3XCUS3 M3 1 H4V3 SOM3 LOWBLOODS TO TR4NSPORT

\-- graceCorrupted [GC] stopped pestering tiltshiftGradient [TG] \--


	3. Three

**> Be Karkat.**

The holding caverns lie far beneath the brooding caverns, and have gone unused for as long as you can remember.  Remains of the Jade-Lime wars have since crumbled into the overwhelming dust.  Bones of centuries-dead lime rebels are shoved into shameful corners, or broken apart by prisoners extinct beyond record.  There are no lights to guide you; olive officers adapted their eyes to the dark—or adapted the dark for their eyes; either way, you lack their superior night vision, and have brought a small flashlight.

Your ears are not nearly as good as Kanaya’s; even in the dead air, every noise echoes from every wall.  It takes you a few tries to decipher any of the signs, but you find it at last—the whirring cell, alone, shadowed, empty but for one massive silhouette—a prisoner propped up against his cell bars.

You recoil, and there is a moment before you realize—he’s not dead.  You can hear his steady rattling breath, and you wonder how much of the caverns’ oxygen is left.  With your light shining directly in his face, he smiles, revealing a set of jagged teeth, sharp and white against soot-blotted lips.

Bars stretch across the meager three-foot entrance, and the lock is old, covered with a layer of dust.  You fish for the skeleton key in your pocket.

"Hi, Karkat."  The voice is low and hollow, like marrowless bones, and it laughs as you squint into the dark. 

"How—okay, fuck this," you say.  "Up to my squawk blaster in assholes who know me.  I don't know and I don’t care who you are."

"Yeah," says the voice, now loud and forceful.  "I guess that you motherfucking don't." 

"Uh," you say, trying not to sound terrified.  "So.  Orders of the new Empress."

"Nope."  The gigantic troll scrapes something sharp against the stone floor. 

"Are you fucking kidding me."

Slow movement in the cell.  The prisoner leans toward the floor, then pushes himself up, in drawn-out movements, until his head reaches what you had, until now, expected to be the ceiling.  You take a step back.

"Gone and committed an offense what the court coalition calls unpardonable."  His voice booms from every corner. 

"Shit," you say, your own voice feeble in the aftermath, and you hold the key up in an attempt at pacification.  "Just said I don’t care.  No one cares.  You can go home."

"You'll want to put that away, brother." 

"Pretty sure I won't."  You grip it tighter and cast your flashlight around the cell, trying to make out a back wall, but darkness swallows the light.  There is a faint growl from deep inside—more of a stressed grinding sound—and a large pair of eyes gleam suddenly, as round as two green moons.

"Pretty sure you will." 

"No."   _Show them the might of your insufferable obstinacy_ , Kanaya had said, and only now you understand her.

"Ha," you think the gigantic troll says, but you hardly hear it.  It could be something else.

"Are you keeping an animal in here—"

"Kar _kat_ ," says another voice, stretching the last syllable of your name too long to go unnoticed.  You flash your light back to the eyes, and they've gotten closer, pupils wide.  You definitely do not yell.  "We want to stay!"

"Don’t question the lady."  The first voice is loud again.  Your mouth opens and closes and for a moment you resemble a hungry grub.

"The fuck."

"Don’t," the second voice says, and you take a distracted step back as another set of teeth gleams bright, "question the gentleman!"

"What did you even do?"  You ask, throat dry.  The first troll sinks to his knees, and you can feel breath on your face.  A coldblood, you realize.  By now your eyes are adjusted to the light, and you realize that the female troll is now huddled under his arm.  She’s as tiny as he is huge, and there is a discernible ring of olive green around large, reflective pupils.

"The forbidden profanity," says the little troll, but it sounds somewhat like _furbitten_ , and, though beyond credibility, possibly even _purrfanity_.  "Don’t make him repeat it!"

"You can’t be serious," you say, half-laughing.  "No one gives a shit about that anymore.  You’ve been saying it the whole time I’ve been down here.  Even the court wouldn’t hold someone for saying motherf—"

"You best all watch your motherfucking language, motherfucker."

"You should go, Karkat," the little troll says.

You leave them with the key, but as you trudge back up the long-forgotten flights, you don’t hear the clank of the lock.

— — — —

The tyrian’s name is Feferi Peixes, and she is hungrier than a pre-hibernation cholerbear—you’ve gotten bread and grub sauce for her three times in as many hours.  Kanaya has put her in what looks like her own silk robes, decorated with an elaborately embroidered ♍, but it drapes over her narrow frame and trails at least a foot of material on the floor.

When you return, Peixes has her hand outstretched, and is muttering softly to herself.  It takes her a moment to notice you, but her smile is wide when she does—maybe _too_ wide, you think, for comfort, and you remember the old tales.  She has a few broken teeth but the rest are shark-sharp and gleaming.

"Crabsnack," she says, and for a second you think she means to make you one.  You put the grub sauce before her (mustard, she soon realized, was her favorite) and lean against the far wall, arms crossed.

She reaches a hand toward you, and green silk slips back to reveal the knobby joint of her elbow.  "Watch."

"I don’t—"

Her hand is suddenly in front of your face, and it slaps itself across your mouth, gripping your jaw with unnerving strength, and its webbed fingers are cold— _the coldest blood_ , you think, before your muffled yell.  Peixes laughs glitteringly from the center of the room—her arm ends mid-wrist, but there is no blood dripping from the stump.

When you manage to pry the disembodied hand from your face and breathe in simultaneous relief and preparation to scream, it disappears from your grip and reattaches itself to her arm—

"The _fuck_ —"

"Don’t yell!" She pleads, hiding broken and jagged teeth behind a pleading mouth.  "I just wanted to show you—"

"Yeah? Could you show me some other insane fucking magic trick?  One that doesn’t involve cutting your hand off and sticking it to my face?"

"No, because you’d yell, dummy!"

You snarl, wiping clammy dampness from your mouth.

"Please, Karkat," she whispers. "I need help."

"I don’t know who the hell would have told you to ask _me_."

She looks at you for a moment, calculating, before resolve and excitement glimmer on her face.  "You did."

 

— — — —

\-- gameTime [GT] began pestering acidicGambit [AG] \--

 

GT: vriska! hi.  
AG: Oh.  Hi, John.  
AG: A 8it odd you should contact me now, eh?  I’m in a rush!  
AG: Empresses to impress, d8s to keep.  
GT: yeah, i know, duh.  court date.  
AG: Hey!  A d8 at the court is not the same as a court d8.  This one is considera8ly more fore8oding.  
AG: 8y the way, your purple friend made a pretty 8ad impression.  
GT: what, rose?  on who?  
AG: Kanaya, dum8ass.  And I’d advise her to stick her nose out of that particular nook.  I don’t want my victim to 8e focused on extraterrestrial matters while I’m trying to  
AG: Uh........  
AG: You know.  
GT: dude, gross.  
AG: Shut up!!!!!!!!  
AG: There is nothing gross a8out a power gra8.  It is our way of life.  
GT: what’s with the dress, then?  you’re a mind hero, can’t you just brain control her or whatever?  
AG: No, I can’t.  
AG: I don’t know what’s wrong with me l8ely!  It’s 8een 8ugging me no end.  No one is suscepti8le anymore, not even the mustard8lood or that sneaky little mutant Kanaya thinks she’s hiding from us.  
AG: And especially not my 8est sis.  I’ve tried, 8ut for the past few times I get nothing 8ut nothing!  Str8 8lank.  
AG: She’s always 8een a challenge, 8ut recently it’s like there’s no way in at all.  May8e she’s finally found a way to 8lock me out.  Or may8e........  
AG: My powers are fading.  
AG: It’s humili8ting, to 8e honest.  
GT: that sucks.  
AG: Anyway.  What do you want?  
AG: I don’t have much time, if that hasn’t 8een o8vious.  
GT: ha ha.  well, as the rogue of time, i hereby grant you a ton of it.  
AG: Pretty sure it doesn’t work that way.  Different universes, remem8er?  
GT: yeah, i know.  but you’re a rogue too.  i figured i should let you know how that works.  
GT: my gift to you!  
GT: now you have two.  i am passing out gifts like an overused comic reference.  
AG: Wow.  
AG: Thanks.  
GT: you’re welcome!  
AG: 8ye.  


\-- acidicGambit [AG] stopped pestering gameTime [GT] \--


End file.
